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How to Begin Again: Lessons from Nature (and Lent)
The doldrums of Lent are upon us. Several weeks of slogging through, haphazardly trying to fulfill commitments of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, sometimes doing them well and sometimes not doing them at all. But everything worth doing is worth doing, even poorly, right? Even in the midst of Winter’s Last Stand, (read: winter’s last shot at causing nasty viruses that knock whole families on their feet, keep small babies up at night with congested noses and keep preschoolers down all day, bound to the sofa with a fever) we must try to slog through, even if it’s poorly. Because as most people know it’s hard to keep commitments and fast…
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Learning to Surrender (The Sequel)
If you haven’t read Learning to Surrender, that’s part one of this story, so be sure to read that first. The week after learning baby was breech, I headed into the hospital for my version. I was pretty certain baby had already flipped back to head down, but I went to the hospital and asked for a quick ultrasound before they tried to place an IV. When they put the wand on my belly, it was very clear that baby was already head down. I was thrilled! All the pieces were in place to have a vaginal delivery, just a waiting game at this point. Jesus, you took care of…
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My Dad’s Heart Attack and the Power of Prayer
Lucy and I had just finished meeting the family’s newest addition (her cousin, my nephew). He was two days new, tiny and sweet. We only had a few minutes before we had to get back home so Jon could get to his regular holy hour. I was pulling away from their house and I got a phone call from my brother. It was short and succinct. I could hear him take a breath and he said, “Dad collapsed tonight.” I responded “WHAT?” CPR. Sedated. Intubated. Dad is stable now, but we don’t know what happened. Words you hope you’ll never hear in the same sentence about either of your parents.…
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Heroes, Villains, and the Parking Meter Lady
I was having a morning. You know, one of those mornings.The type where you wake up early after having been up in the middle of the night for a couple of hours with your baby. The kind where you wake up groggy and grumpy and don’t handle things rationally. Where you wake up on the wrong side of the bed.That kind of morning. That morning I decided to take the kids to the library because we needed to return some books. It also seemed like a good diversion. We loaded the stroller, fed the meter, set my parking meter timer on the phone, and went in. We checked out our…
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Are You Wasting Your Time on Your Children?
Our society is hyper-focused on productivity. I could see it in high school students who were in twenty different time-consuming activities while taking ten different high level courses all while trying to hold down a full time job. Alright, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but whether you’re a high school student trying to build the resume for college applications or parents trying to provide all the best opportunities for their children, there’s a high societal (and also internal) pressure to perform, to win, to be the best, to have the best, to do the best. I’m a stay at home mom with two little children. I often times feel…
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My Little Cloister
The cloister of Carmel is called by Claire Dwyer, author of This Present Paradise, “an inheritance of silence and solitude and perpetual prayer” and is one of many paths to holiness. Great saints and Doctors of the Church have arisen from this tradition. St. Theresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, St. Therese of Lisieux, and the somewhat lesser known St. Elizabeth of the Trinity, to name a few. Family life is very different. And though many great saints have arisen from the tradition of silence and solitude, many great saints have arisen also from the great tradition of noise and chaos, of love and laughter, otherwise known as…
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The Hidden Holiness of Parenthood
Do you ever feel like being a parent isn’t “holy”? Some days I’m left feeling the monotony of parenthood. Other days I’m left feeling inadequate. Still, some days I feel as though I failed my children, whether it’s because I lost my temper again or spent too much time looking at my phone. Raise your hand if you can relate. When I was discerning back in college (and for several years after), I couldn’t shake the idea that being a religious sister was the holier option. Religious sisters get time built into their schedule every single day for mass, prayer, silence, and yet still more prayer and time to be…
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Let Him Fight for You
In college, I was so afraid of allowing God to show me his plans for my life, especially my vocation. I remember talking with a vocations director from a religious order because I was so confused. I had an intense fear of being called to religious life and a strong desire to be married. The idea of allowing God to show me what he wanted left me spiritually paralyzed for quite some time. But that sister said, “It’s time to raise the white flag.” But I’ll be honest, I didn’t know what that meant when she said it. Maybe it should have been obvious, but I learned that the white…
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My Domestic Church: Catholic Culture at Home
“The world is thy ship and not thy home.”-St. Therese of Lisieux These words are a stark reminder from a saint who knew this message all too well. Therese lost her beloved mother to cancer at the age of four. She lived knowing four of her siblings never made it past childhood or infancy. Finally, she watched her father lose his faculties to dementia after suffering a stroke. All from the confines of her cloister. “The world is thy ship and not thy home.” In other words, we are pilgrims, travelers, sojourners in a strange land. We are passing through to our heavenly home, don’t get too comfortable! In many ways,…
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My Domestic Church: Taking Your Children to Adoration
Jesus said, “Let the children come to me, and do not prevent them; for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” Matthew 19:14 Take my children to adoration? Take my kids to sit in church? In silence? And pray? Are you kidding me?! Nope! Taking your children to adoration probably feels like a daunting task. However, Eucharistic Adoration is such a great gift to give to our children and something we shouldn’t avoid because it’s hard. Some time ago, I went to adoration and a grandmother came in with who I presumed to be her grandson, probably around 7 years old and full of energy. I had seen them…